Monday, September 28, 2015

The Broad is a new contemporary art
museum founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad on Grand Avenue in
downtown Los Angeles. The museum, which is designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro
in collaboration with Gensler, opened September 20, 2015 with free general
admission. The museum will be home to the 2,000 works of art in the Broad
collection, which is among the most prominent holdings of postwar and contemporary
art worldwide. With its innovative “veil-and-vault” concept, the
120,000-square-foot, $140-million building will feature two floors of gallery space
to showcase The Broad’s comprehensive collection and will be the headquarters
of The Broad Art Foundation’s worldwide lending library. For more information
on The Broad and to sign up for updates, please visit www.thebroad.org
'

The third-floor galleries will also feature works
dating from the 1970s by Richard Artschwager and Chuck Close. Concentrated installations
of art from New York’s East Village and Soho scenes of the 1980s reflect the
Broads’ passionate immersion in that era as collectors. Highlights from the
collection’s incomparable paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiatare prominently
featured, as are strong representations by Cindy Sherman, drawn from The Broad’s
largest collection in the world of her works; Sherrie Levine, including Fountain
(Buddha), 1996, her appropriated version in cast bronze of the porcelain urinal
that Marcel Duchamp famously and notoriously exhibited in 1917 as Fountain; Barbara Kruger’s
iconic Untitled (Your body is a battleground) from 1989; as well as works by Jack
Goldstei nand others.

Artists whose work came to the fore in the 1990s include Glenn
Ligon, Andreas Gurskyand Julie Mehretu,all of whom have significant representations
in the inaugural exhibition. A recent work by Mehretu, Cairo, 2013, a vast,
swirling, ink-and-acrylic representation of the architecture, atmosphere and
social dynamism of the Egyptian capital during the political turbulence of the
Arab Spring, isfeatured in the large entry gallery on the third floor. Works
from the 1980s and 1990s highlight the Broads’ intensive and sustained
engagement with artworks containing tough social and political content, found
in the work of artists like David Wojnarowicz, Cady Noland, Kara Walker, Anselm
Kiefer and Mike Kelley. The collection’s abiding interest in sometimes biting,
confrontational imagery critical of some of the most traumatic passages and
challenging issues in American and European modern history plays a major role
in the installation.

Anselm Kiefer’s masterwork Deutschlands Geisteshelden,
addressing the recovery of Germany from the ravages of World War II, is shown
in relationship with German artist Joseph Beuys’ multiples, selected from the
Broad’s 570-work Beuys multiples collection, the most comprehensive set of
these key works in the Western U.S.

Galleries on the 15,000-square-foot first
floor focus almost exclusively on the collection’s most recent artworks, dating
from 2000 to the present—many of which will have their debut showing in Los Angeles.
Those works include Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room, 2013, a mirror-lined
chamber housing a dazzling and seemingly endless LED light display;

and The Visitors, 2012, by Ragnar Kjartansson,
a 360-degree, nine-screen video projection that surrounds the viewer with
images of the artist and his musician friends performing within different rooms
of a derelict historic mansion, a highly poignant contemplation on
collaboration and the creative process.

About the Broad
Collection

The Broad collection includes The Broad Art Foundation and The Eli
and Edythe L. Broad Collection, which together hold 2,000 works of postwar and
contemporary art. With a strong desire to advance public appreciation for
contemporary art, the Broads established The Broad Art Foundation in 1984 as a
way to keep these works in the public domain through an enterprising loan
program that makes the art available for exhibition at accredited institutions throughout
the world. The Broads continue to actively add to the collection through
strategic acquisitions focused on expanding the representations of an artist’s
work and broadening the scope of the collection. The result is a lending
library of contemporary art and an expansive collection that is regularly cited
as among the top in the world.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Sotheby’s November 5 2015 Evening Sale of Impressionist &
Modern Art will feature one of the finest works by Kazimir Malevich
remaining in private hands:

Mystic Suprematism (Black Cross on
Red Oval).

The painting is the last of a renowned group of five
canvases restituted to the artist’s heirs in 2008 to be offered for sale,
and as such represents the final opportunity to acquire a seminal
masterpiece by Malevich from this celebrated collection. Mystic
Suprematism epitomizes the 20th century European avant-garde at
its most revolutionary, and comes to auction this November with an
estimate of $35/45 million.

Simon Shaw, Co-Head of Sotheby’s Worldwide Impressionist &

Modern Art Department, said: “Mystic Suprematism captures a moment when Malevich was at his
most radical, iconoclastic and powerful. As the last canvas to come to auction bearing the
exceptional provenance of the artist and his family, its sale will mark a major market moment this
fall. Sotheby’s first offered a work from this illustrious group in 2008, when Suprematism, 18th
Construction achieved a record $60 million. With so few outstanding Suprematist paintings
remaining in private hands, we are honored to have been entrusted by the artist’s family once again
and look forward to presenting Mystic Suprematism to collectors worldwide this fall.”

Mystic Suprematism offers a searing presentation of Malevich's art at its most iconoclastic and
theoretically complex. Painted in 1920–22 in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the
image embodies the 'new world order' promoted by the Suprematist movement – Malevich's radical
artistic philosophy that had transformed Russian avant-garde art in the early-20th century.

Five
years following the publication of his Suprematist Manifesto in 1915, Malevich had fine-tuned his
philosophies and perfected the artistic expression of his ideas, eliminating many of the colors,
shapes and more painterly elements that dominated his earlier Suprematist compositions. His
paintings at this stage were absolute in their dismissal of cultural, political or religious
precedent. Mystic Suprematism epitomizes this shift in its most extreme form, with its irreverent
black cruciform and oval of red paint set against an abyss of white.

In 1927, Malevich accompanied the present painting along with more than 70 other works to the
seminal exhibition Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung in Berlin. This was the first time the artist’s work
was exhibited outside of Russia, and the show was pivotal in establishing his reputation as one of the
most influential international artists of the 20th century.

Following the exhibition, Malevich was obliged to return to the Soviet Union and arranged for the
painting to be stored in Berlin, but he was unable to return to Germany as he was prevented from
leaving the Soviet Union, where he died in 1935. Mystic Suprematism was later entrusted to the
German architect Hugo Häring, who purportedly sold it to the Stedelijk Museum, where it was
featured for over 50 years. Following a 17-year struggle, it was finally returned to the artist's heirs in
2008 after a historic settlement was reached with the City of Amsterdam.

Of the four other works that were restituted to Malevich’s family, two were sold by Sotheby's, one
was sold privately to the Art Institute of Chicago, and one was sold to an anonymous collector. In the
last 25 years, only four major works by Malevich have been sold at auction.

Sotheby’s New
York Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art on 5
November 2015 will also feature an exquisite group of late-
19th and early-20th century masterworks assembled in
the 1940s and ‘50s by Belgian collectors Louis and
Evelyn Franck.

The works are led by Vincent van Gogh’s
Paysage sous un ciel mouvementé, a sweeping
landscape view from Arles that is estimated to sell for
$50/70 million. The collection also offers Pablo
Picasso’s Nu au jambes croisées, a large-scale, fully-
worked pastel from his famed Blue Period
(estimate $8/12 million); superb examples by Paul
Cézanne, Kees van Dongen and Henri de Toulouse-
Lautrec; and the finest work by Belgian painter James
Ensor ever to appear at auction.

Born in 1907 in Belgium, Louis Franck was a passionate sailor, international banker and
discriminating art collector, whose father was an important patron to Belgian artists including James
Ensor. After marrying Evelyn Aeby, the couple moved to London in 1935, and it was during this time
that they began to build their remarkable art collection. Louis and Evelyn went on to found the Old
Broad Street Charity Trust and became major benefactors of the World Wildlife Fund, of which Louis
served as Vice-President and Treasurer from 1976 to 1985. The Francks’ superb collection has been
on public view at the Fondation Gianadda in Martigny, Switzerland since 1997.

Painted in April of 1889 at the height of the artist’s famed Arles period, Vincent van Gogh’s Paysage
sous un ciel mouvementé is a testament to the most successful period of his career (estimate
$50/70 million). Painted just one year before Van Gogh’s death, the dramatic landscape depicts the
fields outside Arles in the south of France, where he lived from early 1888 through mid-1889. Its
palette evokes the colors found in this new Southern climate, yet the turbulent skies foretell Van
Gogh’s mental decline in the months following the work’s execution.

Since 2014, only three works from Van Gogh’s mature period (1888–1890) have appeared at auction
– all at Sotheby’s.

Nature morte, Vase aux marguerites et coquelicots from 1890 sold in
November 2014 for $61.8 million (estimate $30/50 million) to an Asian private collector.

In February
of 2014, an impressive 11 bidders spanning North America, South America, Europe and Asia
competed for L'homme est en mer from 1889 at Sotheby’s London, driving the final price to $27.5
million (estimate $9.8/13 million).

L'Allée des Alyscamps from 1888 sold in May 2014 to an Asian
private collector for $66.3 million, marking the highest auction price for Van Gogh since 1998 and an
auction record for any landscape by the artist.

Pablo Picasso’s pastel Nu au jambes croisées was created in 1903, at the apotheosis of the artist’s
Blue period (estimate $8/12 million). The work represents this fragile aspect in the young artist’s
life, when sex, melancholy and vulnerability took root and would ultimately shape every successive
period of his art for nearly a century. Large-scale, fully-worked pastels from Picasso’s Blue period
rarely appear at auction, and the Franck work embodies this critical moment in the artist’s oeuvre.

A unique feature of this collection is the group of three superb
works by the great Belgian symbolist painter James Ensor. Louis Franck’s
father, François, was a patron of Ensor’s and an important collector of the
artist’s works. Louis inherited several of these great paintings, notably

Ensor’s masterwork Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem,

which Louis subsequently sold to the Getty Museum in 1981.
Works by Ensor are tremendously rare at auction, and the three paintings on
offer in the Evening Sale are truly exceptional examples from the artist’s
finest period.

Les Toits d’Ostende
(estimate $1.5/2 million),

Le Jardin d’Amour (estimate $2/3 million),

and particularly Les Poissardes
mélancoliques (estimate $3/5 million)

each demonstrate the artist’s irreverent disregard for convention and his unique vision

.
The collection offers two important paintings by Paul Cézanne. Fleurs dans un pot d'olives
(estimate $5/7 million), painted in 1880-82, displays the artist’s ability to imbue a
still-life with all of the subtlety and emotional potency of portraiture. Still-lifes from the artist’s
mature period, such as the present work, are considered the harbingers of 20th-century Modernism,
providing inspiration for the Cubists.

Portrait de Victor Chocquet (estimate $2.5/3.5 million)
belongs to a rare group of works depicting the artist’s most important patron: Victor Chocquet.
Painted circa 1880-85, the present portrait is presumed to have been modeled after a photograph
found in Cézanne's archives by his son, in which the sitter is wearing the same jacket and tie
illustrated in the work.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

McCabe Fine Art ipresents an
exhibition of work by German artist Georg Baselitz. Having gained notoriety and
critical attention in the 1960s, Baselitz (b. 1938) is among the most
successful artists to come out of Germany. Influenced by folk art as well as
German Expressionism, Baselitz incorporates elements of both styles into a
unique blend of figuration and abstraction. His Neo-Expressionist paintings,
which often depict discombobulated or upside down figures, reflect complex and
disorienting themes surrounding German identity in the post-World War II era.
In particular, Baselitz himself is concerned with what it means to be a
contemporary German artist.

The paintings on view at McCabe Fine Art are
from Baselitz’s “Collusion” series (“Verdunkelung,” in German),which the artist
began in 2008. The title of this series refers to the wartime practice of
blacking out windows as a means of protection against enemy airstrikes. In each
painting a sketchy white figure appears frail and ghostlike against a dark
murky background. Drips and splatters of runny white paint erupt from these
male nudes, recalling one of Baselitz’s earliest and most well-known paintings:

When exhibited as part of the artist’s
first solo show, this seminal work depicting a topless man holding his
disproportionately large penis in his hand was deemed obscene. The painting was
confiscated by the authorities, and Baselitz and his two dealers were fined.
Typical of Baselitz’s oeuvre, which includes paintings, sculptures and prints,
the “Collusion” paintings conflate history (most often, as in this case, the
darkness, despair, and vileness of World War II) with a reference to his own
personal history.

Given Baselitz’s strong connections to Nordic art and artists,
it is important that a solo exhibition of his work is being held in Stockholm.
Baselitz’s subject matter, which features soldiers, forests, woodsman and
animals, relates directly to traditional Nordic painting. Specifically, several
late 19thcentury/early 20thcentury Nordic painters have had a great influence on the
German artist.

Foremost is Edvard Munch (1863–1944), Baselitz’s great
appreciation for whom is evidenced in his expressionistic style and haunting
treatment of psychological themes. Baselitz’s deep fascination with Munch has
even manifested itself in the form of several portraits. In addition, Swedish
artists from the same generation such as Carl Fredrik Hill (1849–1911), Ernst Josephson
(1851–1906), and August Strindberg (1849–1912) are important references for
Baselitz. Since the beginning of his career Baselitz has returned again and
again to paintings by Scandinavian artists for inspiration.

Georg Baselitz

Baselitz
lives and work in Germany. Major retrospectives of his work have been held
worldwide, including at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1983; traveled to
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and Kunsthalle Basel); Centre Pompidou, Paris
(1993); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1995; traveled to Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC,
and Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
(1996); and Royal Academy of Arts, London (2007). Baselitz has represented Germany
at the Venice Biennale (1980) and participated in Documenta 7 in Kassel,
Germany (1982). Eight new large-scale works by Baselitz, which comprise his
series titled Fällt von der Wand nicht(Doesn't Fall From the Wall), are
exhibited at the Arsenale at the 56thVenice
Biennale (2015). He is also a professor at the Hochschule der Kunste art academy
in Berlin.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

The Denver Art Museum (DAM) will present the first
full-scale museum presentation celebrating the female artists of the
Abstract Expressionist movement. Organized by the DAM and curated by
Gwen Chanzit, Women of Abstract Expressionism brings together
51 paintings to examine the distinct contributions of 12 artists who
played an integral role in what has been recognized as the first
fully-American modern art movement. On view June 12, 2016 through Sept.
25, 2016, the exhibition presents a nuanced profile of women working on
the East and West Coasts during the 1940s and ’50s, providing scholars
and audiences with a new perspective on this important chapter in art
history.

Following its debut at the DAM, Women of Abstract Expressionism will travel to the Mint Museum in October 2016 and to the Palm Springs Art Museum in February 2017.

The DAM’s exhibition focuses on the expressive freedom of direct
gesture and process at the core of abstract expressionism, while
revealing inward reverie and painterly expression in these works by
individuals responding to particular places, memories and life
experiences. Women of Abstract Expressionism also sheds light
on the unique experiences of artists based in the Bay Area on the West
Coast where they were on a more equal footing with their male
counterparts than those working in New York. The featured artists
include Mary Abbott, Jay DeFeo, Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia
Gechtoff, Judith Godwin, Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner,
Joan Mitchell, Deborah Remington and Ethel Schwabacher.

“For millennia women have been creators and innovators of artistic
expression,” said Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director
of the DAM. “Few women have found their way into the accounts of art
history, and not until the 20th century have they received some of the
credit that is long overdue. We are delighted to be the first U.S.
museum to tell these stories of the most prolific female Abstract
Expressionists.”

Lee Krasner, who often lived in husband Jackson Pollock’s shadow, is
one notable Abstract Expressionist painter featured in the exhibition.
Seven of Krasner’s works will be on view, showing the breadth of her
artistic development and her responses to the natural world around her.
This is visible in prominent works such as

Over the next quarter-century, Krasner drove dynamically through a
number of style shifts - not all of them equally compelling, it's true -
achieving at her peak a powerful, dramatic, and at times disturbing
imagery that makes deep connections with the forces of nature. Her high-
key floral abstractions of the late 1950's, such as ''Listen,'' with
its brilliant bursts of color arrestingly played off against ''open''
areas of bare canvas, have a contagious exuberance. They are succeeded
by a series of angry, large-scale canvases - somberly umber in tone -
like ''Charred Landscape'' of 1960, a turbulent massing of peaky and
ovoid forms that suggests cosmic catastrophe.

A lesser-known artist featured in Women of Abstract Expressionism,
Sonia Gechtoff, experienced a career that spanned both coasts. Her
artistic contributions are pivotal in understanding the situation for
women during the Abstract Expressionist movement. Gechtoff had much
success in the Bay Area, but was surprised to experience gender bias in
New York.

“Women of Abstract Expressionism, for the first time,
positions this expanded group of painters within the context of abstract
expressionism and its cultural milieu,” said Gwen Chanzit, curator of
modern art at the DAM. “The exhibition will contribute to a more
complete understanding of this important mid-20th century movement by
presenting artists beyond the handful of painters who have previously
defined the whole in textbook accounts. It also will present these
female artists together for the first time. While visitors discover the
significant role of women in the formation of abstract expressionism,
they will be treated to a powerful presentation of remarkable
paintings.”

Lee Krasner, Polar Stampede, 1960

Lee Krasner, Imperative, 1976

Exhibition Catalog

A fully illustrated catalog, edited by Joan Marter and published by
Yale University Press in association with the DAM, will serve as a
permanent record of Women of Abstract Expressionism. Essays by
leading scholars of abstract expressionism will be included in the
catalog, as well as an extensive compilation of artist biographies of
women featured in the exhibition and some additional 30 artists whose
work paralleled the movement.

Friday, September 4, 2015

The Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli
(1445-1510 ) is considered one of the
most important artists of the Renaissance. Countless reproductions have been made of his works, with some
creators add ing a slant or “modern
touch”, resulting in a work that has acquired a momentum and trajectory in its own right. Many of these
re-workings are so removed from the
originals that Botticelli has become a household name and can be used as a touchstone for fashion and lifestyle
with out any mention being made of his
paintings. Products are named after him, popular-culture personalities allude to his motifs in
fashioning their own image, and some of
the characters portrayed in his works – particularly his “Venus” – are now firmly embedded in collective awareness.

Yet our apparent familiaritywith his
opus was not inevitable. Sandro Botticelli was largely forgotten after his death, only to be rediscovered
around 1800. From the mid-19th
century onwards the
Pre-Raphaelite movement in England and the associated admiration of Botticelli were
instrumental in the artist’s resurgence,
which caught the imagination of increasing numbers of artists and a steadily growing public.

Since then,
Botticelli’s work has been subject to
wildly different interpretations and poses numerous questions. How did the artist come to be so famous? How
did he get to be a popicon? Why are his
paintings considered timeless and “European”, to the extent that they even feature on Euro coins?
One thing is certain: few old masters
can equal Botticelli as a source of inspiration for modern art and present-day artists.

The exhibition, which includes more than forty
original works, explores a touching
story of appropriation and appreciation th at began in the early19th century
and continues to this day. For the first time ever, Sandro Botticelli’s works are presented in the
context ofsubsequent interpretations and paraphrases. The 130 works
on show will includemany masterpieces
of European art and important wor ks on loan from the great collections of the world. Among them
represented are Dante Gabriele Rossetti,
Edward Burne-Jones, René Magritte, Elsa Schiaparelli, Andy Warhol and Bill Viola.

The exhibition
also features drawings, photographs,
videos, fashion and design objects. The visual aspect of the exhibition is
largely a reflection of the partnership between the Gemäldegalerie and the Victoria
and Alb ert Museum. Since the beginning
of Botticelli’s comeback in the early years of the 19 th century Berlin has
possessed a significant number of the master’s works. The largest collection of Botticellis outside of
the painter’s own city of Florence has
always been housed in the Gemäldegalerie of the Staatliche –formerly Königliche – Museen zu Berlin,
founded in 1830.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

When the Venetian painter Antonio Canal arrived in London in 1746, Britain was booming. During his nine-year stay, the artist captured the latest achievements of British architecture and engineering. Including loans from Compton Verney, The National Trust, The British Museum, Royal Collection Trust and Tate this exhibition also features Canaletto’s British contemporaries and a review of John Wood’s reinvention of architecture in Bath.

Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768), known popularly as Canaletto, is today remembered as one of Italy’s greatest view painters. His images of Venice were particularly popular with Grand Tourists from Britain. When war caused the flow of British visitors to Venice to dry up, Canaletto followed his patrons home to Britain, where he stayed for almost nine years from 1746 to 1755.

Through a series of astonishing canvases and drawings,
Canaletto celebrated the accomplishment, success and prosperity of the
rising British nation and its latest achievements of architecture and
engineering. Canaletto’s London is busy but beautiful with its wealth of
new landmarks: Wren’s Baroque churches, the majestic St Paul’s
Cathedral and the naval palaces of Greenwich; Hawksmoor’s ‘Gothick’
towers for Westminster Abbey, William Kent’s new Palladian Horse Guards
building and the Rococo pleasure gardens at Vauxhall and Ranelagh. The
construction of two marvels of engineering, the new bridges across the
Thames at Westminster and Walton, is documented in detail.

Canaletto's Italianesque depiction of Warwick Castle shows how the
artist used light to add a Mediterranean touch to a traditional English
scene. Canaletto was particularly taken with this castle, and
painted five different views of it during his time in England.